The Stygian Night
by AppleDragon
Summary: Even royal families have skeletons in their closet. In fact, they may even have more than most. AU!
1. Blood

**Disclaimer: I do not own Katekyo Hitman Reborn, and this character is not mine. Sadly. **

_There was nothing like a hunt. The feel of the wind in your hair, the adrenaline pumping in your veins. That tense moment you freeze, acutely aware of every step your potential victim takes. The catch in their breath rings loud and clear in your ears, the quiet crunch of vertebrae as they whip their head around so quick to check behind them that they inadvertently crack their neck. The wind in your ears as you lunge forwards, pinpointing exactly where the victim is. The feel of the knife in your hand, cool metal pressing against giving skin. The slip as the deadly blade cuts in. And then the feel of hot blood trickling down and coating your fingers where they are pressed against the still-warm skin of the recently deceased. The muscles in your face stretching into a wide, maniac grin as you turn your face upwards to a night sky you've never seen. And then the thump as the body is dropped, and you're gone before the body even cools._

_Nobody sees it – not even you._

_It is the perfect crime._

_But that's to be expected._

_You are a Prince, after all. _

**A/N: Okay, I know this is the vaguest chapter you've probably ever seen but it's a little prologue, if you will. Next chapter will be up very **_**very **_**soon, hopefully, but until then let's see if anyone can guess where I'm going with this. **


	2. A Prince Is Born

**Disclaimer: I do not own Katekyo Hitman Reborn. **

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Through a haze of pain, I can hear the medical equipment in the room beeping. As a general rule, beeping and medical machines don't tend to bode well. I'm no doctor - in fact I rarely even set foot in a hospital - but I know that much.

But it was over, wasn't it? The entire ordeal was done. So why did it still hurt so much?

The nurse hurries over, two bundles of soft baby blue in her hands. I smile weakly and reach out for them, wanting to hold them, to make sure they were real. To hear their quiet, even breaths, so different from my own haggard and rasping ones.

She moves them slightly out of my reach, concern reflected in her eyes.

I'm bewildered for a brief second, but then rightful indignation wins out and I use the last reserves of my power to tilt my chin up defiantly. No, imperiously.

I demand her to hand over the crown princes. I was still the queen, was I not? No matter how weak...

Reluctantly, she hands them over and I smile tenderly down at them as I cradle them both in my arms. I look up at her, the look in my eyes saying see? I can do it. There's nothing to worry about.

The older woman refuses to meet my gaze. I shrug. No matter.

Looking down, I tentatively brush my fingers across the wisps of platinum blonde growing from their delicate scalps. One of them, the older one she tells me, seems to recognize my touch and stirs, eyelids flickering.

I gasp quietly in astonishment, my own eyes hungrily staring at the covered ones of the newborn infant. My mind spins off on a tangent, a million speculations twirling through my mind. Would he have my clear blue eyes? Or would they be a warm, inviting molten gold like his father's?

_Come on, sweetie_, I urge silently, _open your eyes. Let me see how beautiful they are. _

They flicker open, and they are the trademark liquid gold of the royal house. A tired smile of triumph graces my lips and I glance up at the nurse in joy that quickly dissipates when I see the look of pity she gives me.

I bristle. Who was she, a mere commoner, to pity the ruling queen? As if to answer my unspoken question, she leans over to brush her fingers gently over the eyelids of the other twin whose existence had slipped my mind for a second.

I frowned slightly in disapproval, about to rebuke the nurse for so casually touching a member of the royal family. The rebukes died on my lips before they were voiced, though, as I noted the strangely sunken appearance of his eyes. I reached over myself and touched his eyelids. They were merely flaps of skin covering the gaps in his skull hs eyelids should've occupied. I pale, withdrawing shaking fingers from the baby's otherwise flawless face.

"W-what..?"

The nurse sighs and explains. The words ring around my skull. I will never forget them. Not as long as I live.

"Anophthalmia. It is a disease in which a child is born with no ocular tissue. One in ten thousand get it. It's usually a result of genetic mutations or abnormal chromosones, although we're not particularly certain. There's no cure. It tends to accompany other birth defects, for example abnormal brain development. I really am awfully sorry about this, Your Highness."

Strangely, a humming noise reverberates around my head, and it drowns out the nurse's matter-of-fact description of the various surgeries the little boy would have to go through so his face does not become deformed.

I revert my attention back to him, so contentedly slumbering in my arms next to his older brother who was currently watching me with curious eyes.

I know what I must do.

I don't want to do it.

I detach myself mentally, and quietly murmur, "This one's name is Rasiel." as I hand him over to the nurse. She holds him and watches with wide eyes, probably already able to tell what was going to happen next.

"Leave." I command quietly, and she does, shutting the door behind her.

I look down at the other one and gently trace a finger down his cheek.

_Shame, really._ I find myself thinking. _He would've grown up to be such a handsome man. _

But there's no way around it.

I place one hand under his fragile head, cradling it tenderly. The other supports his tiny body. I brace myself for the atrocious deed. It wouldn't be that hard. Easier than wringing the neck of a kitten. Just a simple, quick jerk to the left and it would all be over.

My grip tightens and I'm just about to twist his head to the side when I freeze in terror at the glacially cold voice of my husband.

"What, exactly, is going on here?"

I whimper in terror and cringe back away from him. There is no trace of the original kindness in his eyes. I reach up shakily to touch my face and note with terror that they come away wet. I'd been crying.

My pupils constrict and I look up into the hard, golden eyes with fear. They look cooly back, as if they do not recognize the blue eyes silently begging for mercy.

With an incongruous gentleness, his large hands move to pick the baby up. The second twin. He silently looks at me, a demand in his eyes.

I realize with a jolt what it is. The mother named the children, in our society. Not the father.

"Belphegor." I spit out bitterly, looking at his slumbering form. It seemed appropriate. He'd never open his eyes, and yet he'd managed to steal everything away from me in one fell swoop with his mere existence.

The man nodded, leaning over to the IV drip I was currently hooked up to and injecting a clear substance into the bag. I watch resignedly - I'd known that after I'd produced a heir and my genetic material was known to be flawed, this would happen. I would be put down.

After all, what was I but breeding stock?

But I will not die without some form of struggle at the very least, and so I stare him down, the man who was my husband. Futile as it may seem, I want him to feel something, at least. Some vestige of guilt.

The last things I see are two miniature suns, blazing with defiance hot enough to burn... and yet so very far away.

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**A/N: Well, I did promise to put it the next chapter up quickly. The one after this, though, is probably not going to be up as fast. Sorry 'bout that. Anyways, any thoughts on this plot? I apologize if it's been overdone. It's just that while I was reading through the numerous Belphegor fanfics I noticed that they never actually fully explained why his eyes were covered all the time, and I'd just read this article about a baby who was born with this disease…**

**My brain works in strange ways. It's a very scary place.**


	3. Childhood?

**Disclaimer: I do not own Katekyo Hitman Reborn or any of its characters.**

_Your childhood home was far from ideal, wasn't it? It was almost as if your father purposefully made the house difficult to navigate when blind. _

_You scoff._

_Difficult? More like downright lethal. You supposed it wasn't really your father's fault. In fact, you often wished that you had fallen down the stairs, that you had tripped over that bag and broken your neck, that nobody had found you when you'd wandered obliviously into the little house on the edge of the grounds that was due for demolition. The servant had looked at you incredulously, asked why you hadn't heeded the signs. You weren't allowed to tell him you couldn't see them. _

_You were an embarrassment, and you knew it. The only thing you found strange was that you weren't dead yet. _

_Artificial eyes had been made for you, out of the finest glass. You heard that they were blue - the same as your mother's. They were said to be beautiful, exquisite. _

_Only you felt the slight. _

_Your _mother's _eyes. Not your father's. Your father had the royal blood. Your brother had his eyes. _

_Your grip tightens, nails digging into the palms of your hands. _

_Rasiel this, Rasiel that. Wasn't he the golden boy? Just like his eyes. His goddamn eyes. _

_Ever since you could remember, your hair had been styled so that it would hang like a curtain over your nonexistent eyes. You hated it. The way the hair would hang, heavy in front of you: just because you couldn't see it, didn't mean you couldn't feel it. It tickled, to be honest. It tickled and itched and irritated the hell out of you, but what were you supposed to do about it? It hid your empty eyesockets from the world. It saved the royal family from the embarrassment of having to admit that they'd introduced faulty genes into the gene pool. _  
_Of course, Rasiel had to do the same to his so that nobody would question the hairstyle. _

Do you know the difference between envy and jealousy? I'll tell you. It's very simple, really. Envy is simply wanting what the other person has. Jealousy is the willingness to destroy whatever that person has that you don't. Just so they wouldn't have it anymore.

_At first, you were merely envious of Rasiel. And why shouldn't you have been? He had everything. As the oldest, he automatically guaranteed himself a place on the throne. He hadn't been born with a birth defect. He was fine. _

_No, he was perfect. _

_And you weren't._

_Simple as that._

**A/N: I am, and forever will be, grateful to **_**MrsRegulusBlack123, RAWRMOARE 3 **_**and **_**xkaiistarx**_** for reviewing, given how little I have given for you to actually review. Hehe. Warning: Updates will be sporadic given how my muse comes and goes as it pleases. Oh, god. I should probably stick to oneshots. **


	4. Tears

**Disclaimer: I do not own Katekyo Hitman Reborn. Anything you recognize is probably not mine.**

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When you were small, were you allowed to cry?

I was brought into the royal household at the age of six. I still remember every minute, every second of my tearful departure from home. My mother demanded that I stop crying, that I be strong, that I not bring shame to the family name. My father merely watched from the sidelines, face set in a stoic mask, but I swear that I saw a faint shimmering of tears in his eyes.

Somewhere in the back of my mind, I felt this was wrong. Shouldn't it be the father who would gruffly tell me to keep my head high, to do him proud? Shouldn't it be the mother rambling effusively on with tears brimming in her eyes? That was what all the stories said...

"Farewell, Mother. Father." I say, polite as ever as I step into the limousine and settle into the plush interior.

The servant shuts the door and I swing my legs slightly before remembering I shouldn't and stilling them again.

Faintly, I feel this is wrong too. As the daughter, shouldn't I be entitled to a few tears? I was never going to see them again...

Suddenly gripped by this thought, I crane my head around to stare out of the tinted window, eyes just barely able to see through the tinted window. I was safe here. They couldn't see me here. I watch their faces, hungrily drinking in every detail. I hadn't really looked at their faces much before; I'd been instructed to look demurely down in respect whenever someone of a higher rank talked to me. This didn't happen often, given my pureblood background, but as soon as I arrived at the royal palace, things would be different. _Very_.

Had my father always looked this tired? Had those wrinkles always been etched in so deeply? And my mother... those white hairs. Had they always been there?

Prior to this, my parents had seemed like godlike figures to me; untouchable, like Zeus and Hera in one of the books I'd read.

Now, they seemed human. Fallible. Vulnerable, even.

I bite back a whimper of fear (for them, not myself), and blink the welling tears back fiercely. I would do them proud. I force myself to sit up, back ramrod straight like the tin soldier.

_I am brave_, I tell myself, _I am steadfast. I will not break._

I was off to meet my prince now. The Prince Charming of my dreams.

This was no silver pumpkin carriage, and I was no Cinderella, but I was off to finally meet him.

I beam, happily dreaming up fantasies gleaming with splendour. We would be married, and I would get to wear a beautiful dress. He'd be handsome, and look at me with smiling eyes, and we'd both be in love. We would have children (I was not quite clear on the details as to how, but I knew that that was the proper thing to do), and they would all be little princes and princesses.

And I would be the Queen, and I would wear a tiara.

A fairy-tale ending.

It was beautiful, it was perfect. I had everything planned out.

Well.

_Almost_everything.

There was one thing I hadn't counted in on my calculations.

The real world does not particularly like happy endings, does it?

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**A/N: New character! Hope she's not Mary-Sue… don't be afraid to immediately tell me if she's getting those tendencies. I assure you I am not trying to create one. God forbid. **

**Thank you to all my lovely reviewers. You are all beautiful and deserve much love (which you are definitely getting from me, believe me). **

**You guys motivate me to keep going. Thank you.**


	5. Rage and Bloodlust

_It was so damn annoying. _

_It was, it really was. _

_Would you have to spend your entire life living under the shadow of your brother? Would you? Because an existence like that..._

_You didn't want it. _

_You would much rather you died than have to be so humiliated._  
_Why __**hadn't**__you? Your mother had been killed. You knew that much, through listening in on the idle gossip and chitchat of the servants. _

_Why not you? _

_The servants were your one source of information. They were the only people who stayed in the mansion - if you could call it that. You couldn't see, but you knew through your constant wandering through the house and its grounds that it was much, much smaller than the one the royal family actually occupied. _

_You huff. _

_Other people... who needed them? Even the servants, they were merely seen as a source of information. Father? Merely a source of money, of the creature comforts you would've otherwise had to do without. _

_And Rasiel? Something to kill, to destroy. To rent, limb from limb, muscle from bone. _

_A faint smile crawls across your face._

_You 'read'. Audiobooks were strewn over the floor, and you'd listened to all of them two, three times over. _

_They weren't needed, now. You'd already committed every word to memory. _

_The gory descriptions in the books had been your source of inspiration, and you drew upon them when cooking up new schemes of torture you would unleash upon your brother. _

_And as for practice..._

_The grin stretched wider upon recollection of your first venture into the dense woods that surrounded the grounds in a perfect circle, breaking up only once for a narrow dirt track - the only means into the place. Your family went to extremes to achieve what they wanted. And so would you. _

_You'd slipped, silent as a shadow past the rustling of leaves and delicately over the snaps and crackles of things underfoot, through the sharp warning calls and rustle of feathers as birds took flight._

_Brought yourself to a halt in front of a noise-blocking object, extended a hand cautiously and felt the knobbled, rough surface. Slid probing fingers up and down over it, and around. _

_A tree, you supposed, and upon naming this foreign object you turned and leant nonchalantly against it and patiently waited for the silence of the forest to bloom once more. _  
_And bloom it did. _

_The birds, first, picked up their song hesitantly, still unsure of whether the threat was gone. But it was not they you were interested in. _

_You waited, and waited, until light rustling close to the ground reached your ears. Whatever those were, you were also not interested. _

_You waited and waited, until there was a swoosh of air and a scrabble of nails against the bark of the tree you were currently stationed under. _

_And that, you were interested in. _

_That was your first kill, you supposed, although you were too caught up in the exhilaration of the moment to label it as such. _

_Reliving the moment, you grin even further until your face seems to almost reach a breaking point. And you laugh._

_You hadn't quite perfected your method then, had you? _

_The animal, whatever it had been - a squirrel, most probably, judging from the feel of the tail, had bitten you in self-defense, presumably. _

_It had made no difference to the ends, but the means were changed - fortunately for the animal. _

_Previously, you'd perfected your scheming. You'd had a long repertoire, and had been itching to get your hands on a living being to try them out. _

_Oh, you'd been quite enthusiastic and meticulous about this entire thing, hadn't you?_

_But when the animal's teeth pierced your skin, when you felt warm, thick liquid trickling down your finger - __**your**__ blood - you lost it. _

_You flew into the first of your now notorious rages. Most believe it is because of the sight of your royal blood, shed by commoners, is just too much for you to bear. _

_But it isn't that, is it? _

_It's the fact that you __**have**__ blood to spill that incenses you. The fact that you're alive, the fact that you're breathing. The fact that you can feel the pain, and that the pain proves that you most definitely exist. _

_And so into that fury you fly recklessly. You want to die. You want to be killed. You want to slip into that peaceful never-ending night. _

_But when the rage ebbs away, there you are, still standing, and with a battered, limp carcass in your hands. _

_You let it drop, hearing the dull thud on the ground with detached abandon, and stroll calmly back to the mansion where the servants fuss over the blood on your hands, thinking the source of it was the wound. _

_You stand stock-still as they bandage you up, waiting calmly for the last footstep to fade away before moving and lying down on your bed. _

_Facing what you presume to be the ceiling, you hum in amusement. _

_This added a new factor into things, and you relished the advantage it gave you. _

_The puzzle pieces fell swiftly into place after that. _

_You knew exactly how events would unfold, once you'd caught your twin. The only part left undetermined was how exactly you would get to the other. As the Crown Prince, he would have heavy, round-the-clock security with him. _

_How to bypass that?_

_Amusingly, as things turned out, you didn't really have to ponder over that for too long._

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**A/N: Oh my god, I'm so so so sorry. Effusive apologies to everyone. I had exams this entire month, so wasn't really able to actually sit down and crank a chapter out, and then after they were over… well, let's just say I was perfectly content to just sit and do nothing. And then yesterday I discovered the wonders of League of Legends and proceeded to amuse myself thoroughly by dying multiple times. But then I needed to patch and that takes **_**hours**_** so um… yes. Here you go!**


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